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Ayana Young  Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Carol Ruckdeschel, a biologist, naturalist, environmental activist, and author. 

Carol Ruckdeschel We depend on wild areas, we depend on the Earth and it's ecosystems, plants, I mean just for survival, for our physical survival as well....

Ayana Young  Carol shot the ‘hooch’ with President Jimmy Carter, documented new species of lizards in the north Georgia mountains, and discovered that sea turtles were dying by the tens of thousands along the Georgia coast. She has lived on Cumberland Island for over 40 years and was instrumental in the establishment of the Cumberland Island National Seashore and its ensuing Wilderness designation. Ruckdeschel has fought a lifelong battle with families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Candlers -- who thought of Cumberland Island as their personal playground and summer retreat.

Well, hello, Carol, thank you so much for joining us today. For those of the long time For The Wild listeners, when it was called Unlearn and Rewild, we did an interview with an author who wrote a book about you. So it's pretty incredible to now be speaking to you directly. And I'm really looking forward to diving into a conversation together.

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, I look forward to being part of it. Really flattered that you cared about a place like Cumberland Island. 

Ayana Young  Absolutely.

Carol Ruckdeschel It's a small wilderness, but it's you know, on the East Coast, we don't have too much left.

Ayana Young  Right. So it makes it that much more important.

Ayana Young  I’d like to introduce listeners to Cumberland Island and why it is such an important place. I wonder if you could share with us the sounds, smells, and experiences of Cumberland so listeners can ground themselves in the island’s flora and fauna...And I know that this small island is home to over 20 distinct ecological communities; from salt marshes and maritime forests to coastal beaches, so perhaps you could transport us to an area you are the fondest of?

Carol Ruckdeschel I'm particularly fond of freshwater wetlands as counterintuitive as it may seem, being right there on the ocean. Usually with biologists there's pretty much a division and marine and terrestrial or freshwater. So even though I've been on the island and worked with marine animals, the sea turtles and dead marine animals, my fondness is really for the freshwater mountains of the island. But for most people, of course, it would be the rhythmic churn of the ocean and lapping against the shore and the shorebirds screaming, but inland it's just as beautiful with frogs singing, and a lot of freshwater birds, and alligators, and turles. And so those are my favorite places.

Ayana Young  Because of Cumberland’s incredible biological diversity, it is home to many rare and endangered kin. Bobcats and coyotes roam on the land, bald eagles, American oystercatchers, piping plovers, and least terns soar above, and the waters hold American alligators, green sea turtles, and right whales; many of which are endangered. Having spent the last 40 years on the island, I wonder if you could share some stories of kinship you’ve experienced with the native wildlife?

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, I'm not really a people person, so it just seems natural or comes natural that I formed more lasting impressions with the animals of the island. Yes, alligators are a particular favorite of mine as are sea turtles. Bobcats were introduced, the ones that are there now, they had all died out on the island, but the park reintroduced Bobcats and also a lot of new things like the coyotes and armadillos and things that appeared after I came. So it’s, it’s everchanging, which makes it never a dull moment over there. Just when you think you got all the players lined up, and you can really look at the ecology, then a new one arrives, throws everything into a spin again, got to plug in a new member. So that keeps it interesting.

Ayana Young  And with all of this biodiversity, I wonder what the typography is, like, you know, how does the island shift from different eco-tones? And yeah, if you could just kind of take us through a visualization of what you see there and and yeah, the the smells and how it feels.

Carol Ruckdeschel Sure, it's, the island was is not was not just made in one fell swoop. So it was made over a long period of time. And so there is differing topography in places. There are pretty serious hills in the middle, which were of course at one time dunes and then less so in the middle, in the older portions where it's leveled off and they farmed the land, which there's not too much sign of that left. I mean indirectly, for an ecologist there is because of the vegetation, but for the average person there are trees and what were old fields.  And then the wetlands, of course, the newer, some newer additions along the paralleling the beach, are freshwater slews in between ridges. And there are several of those I mean, side by side, which is very exciting, much younger topography than the old hills and flatland in the middle. And then on the other side of the island, the west side, we've got the salt marsh. And that's a vast level plane for the most part, of course, everybody knows. So it's, it's really, it's an exciting place if you're a biologist because you have your choice of so many different habitat types.

Ayana Young  You’ve spent most of your life gathering research on sea turtles across the island, necropsying thousands of leatherback, green, and loggerhead turtles, all of which are endangered. And their potential extinction feels especially important to mention because these kin are some of the oldest animal species on the planet, dating back over 200 million years, yet it has only taken a few decades for us to decimate their populations. How is sea turtle nesting faring currently on the Island? 

Carol Ruckdeschel Yes, it's really been a pleasure seeing the numbers of nests go up. When I first came, I don't think a single nest survived. I mean, I'd see them and mark them and go out and every day they were all gone. And that was because the island was overrun with hogs. I'd say there was not a square yard in and it wasn't routed up by hogs. They were just everywhere. And of course the island people couldn't, well they would never try to control them but still populations of course, especially on the island's, cycle quite a bit. And at times of high hog populations, I mean, they were very, very abundant. So they put a lot of pressure on sea turtles. And that was true on most of our Georgia barrier islands. And since the Park Service has come, they’ve since got a person who's primary duties is just to keep the hogs under control. So they don't eat all the nests, and that attempt has been very successful.

Ayana Young  That's good to hear that you're seeing more nesting. In 1976 you moved into your home on Cumberland Island that you rebuilt with scavenged wood, and have since led a life that has led you to be profiled as “the wildest woman in the United States.” And, I’d like to ask you about this notion of wild-ness, or perhaps your ethos of wild, and what this has meant to you, especially growing up during a time when gender norms for women were incredibly rigid. Can you speak to the importance of reinstating our feral-ness, especially in a society that attempts to breed the love of the wild out of us from a very early age? 

Carol Ruckdeschel Yes and no. And by that, I mean, I can certainly speak to it because I've always said, I'm, I mean, I know about feminism and all that. And I've never felt like, I really understood that. And I think part of the reason was that I kind of didn't walk on the main path I was off in the woods always. So I never really ran into any obstacles that said “You can't do this” because what I tried to do was away from everybody, so there was nobody there to stop me. I just knew what I loved and so I just went and did what I pleased. Unlike people that have to fight to do what they want to do, if I wanted to be a telephone lineman, for example, I know I would at that time, I would have run into trouble now maybe people have cleared the way and you could do a woman could do that. But when I did it, all I wanted to do was get away from people and get out in the woods. And why because it was just, I really, I really can't explain why ,it was just that there was never any other way because I didn't kind of didn't fit into what I saw as the norm of our society. 

Ayana Young  Yeah, I can relate to some of those pieces. And I'm wondering, yeah, if you, I'm just thinking about the gender dynamics, coming of age in the 50s and 60s and the independence you found in rebuking dominant cultures expectations, like I'm trying to imagine you back then when you're moving to Cumberland Island and saying, you know, “I'm going” and just the the courage that that may have taken at that point.

Carol Ruckdeschel Oh, yeah, well, I was terribly excited. And I'd been there. I'd been there with one of my professors a couple times, and so I knew it from one aspect. And I always thought I'd end up in the mountains where it's cool and the hills and everything and that was just sort of without thinking where I was going I mean, I figured I'd end up there and then when the when the thought of them going to Cumberland, it was like oh well I'm not sure I can handle this you know, being on an island, thinking I'd be up in the mountains and but after visiting at a time or two of course I fell in love with it. And I realized that it's every bit as wild and there's every bit as much to learn there is there is anywhere else. And that's that's the kind of thing that keeps me going is just learning new things and about any kind of natural things about natural systems.

Ayana Young  Many stories have been told about your lifestyle on Cumberland, and what this leads me to really think about is how the love of land and place changes you; it can call you into a certain type of fearlessness, or remembrance that there are ways of being that exist outside of how we are instructed to live. I know many listeners probably struggle with the mentality of feeling stuck within their rigid, industrialized lifestyle; but the life you have carved out on Cumberland is a testament to the reality that you can create something else. What initially attracted you to Cumberland and how have you created this fruitful life within the margins?

Carol Ruckdeschel I guess the main thing that attracted me to it was it became available and I saw a job I could take there and move there and have a place to live and I had to work but work is not an issue. I'm happy to work and so it was just wonderful. And it turned out it was for three years and that was adequate time for me to realize that yes, there are enough questions here to be answered to keep me happy the rest of my life and basically that's what it was about. I mean, besides loving the place and then the wildness of it. I mean, it's far from a pristine wild, it's just there aren’t many people and that's what I found very pleasant.

Ayana Young  In 1955 the National Park Service recognized Cumberland Island as “one of the most significant natural areas” in the US, and by 1972, Cumberland Island was designated as Cumberland Island National Seashore, a unit of the National Park Service. But, in preparing for our conversation - I was reminded that only 5% of the United States is protected wilderness, and only 2.7% of that is located in the contiguous United States, the rest is up in Alaska, which is a painful reminder of how little wilderness remains and why it is so vital for us to stand for wild places across this country...Currently, how much of Cumberland is protected under wilderness designation and what are the shortcomings? 

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, well over half of the island was initially congressionally designated as wilderness. Unfortunately, local special interest groups removed some of that so that they could drive commercial tours and things like that, which is pretty sad for the general public, for that to happen and for anybody to kind of unilaterally do that. But it happened nevertheless, as we know, things happen.

And so the north end, the beach, and the main road was taken out of wilderness so people could drive commercial tours around the island. It happened in a really deceitful way, it was a rider tacked on to an omnibus bill in 2004, by a local Congressman who had been bought and paid for. So that's what happened. Now, the only good thing there is that, I've been told I'm not really a political person, too political, but I've been told that changing an act of Congress is not hard if you just want to totally repeal it. But if you want to change it, then that presents a problem. But if you want to repeal it, all you need is Congressmen to introduce it, if they would support that. So we're all hoping that we can get the wilderness put back together and take it away from special interests. And then it'll be intact again, the beach will be in, we'll all be back in and the north end and then the main road, which would make for a much better longer term preservation than it is now. But yeah, it’s been a mockery of wilderness really. So that’s kind of sad. But right now, there’s also, I mean the chances of getting it put back together are looking better and better.

Ayana Young  Good to hear. And, you know, I was reading something about this “potential wilderness” and what does that mean for a place like Cumberland?

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, I think all wildernesses when they're established go through that, there’s areas with non-conforming use such as retained rights and things like that, what that means is when it all goes back to the government then it can be wilderness, but it also takes another act of Congress to put it in wilderness. That’s what I’ve been told. 

Ayana Young  Cumberland has long had a history of being the playgrounds for wealthy families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Candlers; and currently, the Carnegie family owns a commercial hotel called the Greyfield Inn, where guests can stay and be driven around the island’s wilderness. I mention this because tourism is still peddled as an alternative to extractive industry, but Cumberland proves to be another example of the inherent exploitation that takes place when people seek to make the wild profitable. Can you speak to what occurred on Cumberland when private interests sought to fragment designated wilderness for the purpose of allowing vehicle tours? How was this one of the most substantial removals and fragmentation of wilderness in U.S. history?

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, it's really sad and it probably comes, well maybe not, y'all are more used to how we, we being our society, our culture works nowadays with big money running everything and more so every year, it seems like, but that's what's happened to Cumberland. I mean, it's pretty shocking to see the concessions made, concessions that were made for the American people and now they’re made to other people to make money.  And that's really disheartening. I mean, I don't know how to fight that kind of thing. I know those people and individually, they're mostly very nice people. And, and, but, but it's just I don't know, and I'm not rich, so I can't see it from their standpoint. I think that's what it would take. But I understand that it's a fact, I've accepted that it's definitely a fact that they influence the management of Cumberland.

Ayana Young  Maybe you could also explain how tourism is impacting the wilderness. And, yeah, kind of give us a visualization of this fragmentation because I think for many of us growing up with National Parks, there's roads, and honestly, National Forest and all sorts of public land and BLM, there's roads, cutting through dirt, roads for ATV, etc.. So I'd really be interested in hearing, I guess it's kind of a two parter, one about this fragmentation of wilderness and how that disrupts a place and then we could kind of get into the impacts of tourism. And they're not necessarily one in the same.

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, it's particularly important on Cumberland, because there's one road route, you're going from north to south that is called the main road. And there are other side roads that were trails, or were maintained when there were old fields, or people were running hog traps.

But the main road, there's so much traffic now that it's graded half the way by a big machine Park Service has, because there is a lot of traffic on the south end. But the main road was taken out of wilderness, obviously so they could drive their commercial tours. And as I explained, that goes right up north to south, really there is a Cumberland Island Wilderness West and a Cumberland Island Wilderness East. And really, they took out the whole north end, because there’s a little church up there. And unfortunately, that’s the only possible destination for most people, because most people aren’t interested in just a little view, or a salt marsh, or looking at birds, they want to see something human connected.  And so a little church and a little settlement up there that was designed by folks to help the hotel that was operating up there in the turn of the century. So you have that, and now the commercial tours that now can go from the south end up to the north and drive around the north end and go out the nice way back is on the beach, so people can see the beach. So then they had to take the beach out of wilderness. 

So you can see the big circuit, the driving circuit, and that's particularly devastating for the wilderness. And also in the legislation that removed those areas, they mandated that the park run bus tours to the north end. And those now, they've been shut down because of COVID. But they will resume and that's devastating for somebody hiking up there. And also, taking the road out of wilderness allows bicycles to be up there. So people have buses driving by them, bicycles riding by them, and I’ve heard so many complaints.  I mean, it really shatters people's experience to be passed by a bike or a bus. There are also island people that have the right to drive there, because they're going and coming but they rarely do it. It's like, I try to explain to people like in your neighborhood, you don't drive all the roads, you have your little road to get to the grocery store, wherever you're going. And that's about it. And that's how it is on the island. Most island people aren't driving up and down the island all the time.

Ayana Young  Yeah, it's so important for us, especially as listeners to consider the impact of visiting places, and how we can connect to the wild that is left and also take care of these places. It's a conundrum. You know, it's, it's really challenging to interact and engage and not disrupt even more. And, yeah, I definitely don't have the answers for that at the moment. And maybe they never fully will be. It's so hard because we live such industrialized, technologically forward lives at this point, especially in the United States, so it's like when we're engaging or interacting with these places, we're not doing so in a really gentle way. You know, we're using machines, cars, we're bringing in so much with us. And so I think that also makes things challenging, all of our modern needs as humans and how much we carry with us into these places and leave behind because of that, so yeah, and just our needs for access. And it's complicated. It's really complicated.

Carol Ruckdeschel Yeah, it's particularly sad that if the administering agency is not tuned or supportive of wilderness, it's even worse. For example, I had people come and tell me that they were camped at the northernmost campground on Cumberland Island. And it was dark and somebody came up with a flashlight and warned them that there was a particularly heavy rainstorm coming in and they would be all right, now they were in the wilderness camping and somebody drove up and hiked in to tell them that and they were really offended. And rightly so. I mean, they said, “Of course we're gonna stay” and it was just a heavy rainstorm. But that's that sort of thing. I don't know. I mean, that's, I don't know how to fight that kind of thing, people that go and have experiences like that just need to advertise those experiences for other people and so the Park Service will take heed and realize that people really do want to be alone. I mean, that's, that's a, that should be a god given right. We all need it, I think, some of us more than others.

Ayana Young  Yeah, I do think there is a need for quiet and reflection and some of us, you know, have more access to it than others as well and, and how we're able to find that source of connection, even when we don't get to be in the wilderness, I think is going to be one of our deep inquiries as we move deeper and deeper into the Anthropocene and climate change and who knows what else is coming for us? So yeah, this deep inquiry of finding that type of quiet spaciousness in an increasingly noisy world.

Carol Ruckdeschel Two things about wilderness that people always ask about, you know, why is it significant and all that, like you're just saying, it's so important to our well being, our physical, mental well being to know it's there, but it is physical and mental. In other words, those people that were passed by buses and bicycles, when they presumed they were hiking and wilderness, which they were, it's just that it was on each side of the road, we're devastated and then their experience ruined, but also physically-we depend on wild areas, we depend on the Earth and it’s ecosystems, plants, I mean, just for survival, for our physical survival as well. And that seems to be forgotten because we can, because artificial fertilizer and that means we can make hundreds of 1000s of more people than would normally the Earth would normally sustain and then sort of thing. We forget that it is physical as well as mental or spiritual or whatever you call it. I think.

Ayana Young  Threats have long loomed over the island, ranging from development to extraction, but currently, you are facing a battle against the development of Spaceport Camden. Can you begin by explaining what Spaceport Camden is and what threat it poses? What is the risk of exploding rockets in terms of all habitants of Cumberland? 

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, I I've gone through many NEPA reviews and comments on various aspects of things in the island and everything but the one for the Spaceport, which is immediately opposite the north end of the island on the mainland, with intervening salt marsh and then, of course, rockets will have to go over the salt marsh and waterways and then over the island to be even over the ocean. That was, I don't know how to put it. It's just that I could hardly understand it. In other words in that first environmental impact statement they did for the rocket launch,they just said, “Oh, campers, oh, yes, that would be a problem. Okay, we'll just call them authorized people and they could just stay” “Oh somebody’s living on Cumberland?”, the rockets, which of course, are going to go directly over my house, they know it’s illegal to say I have to leave every time they shoot a rocket because it’s for a private enterprise and that would be a taking, and they can’t just take somebody’s property for that. So they can’t make me lead. And so they just call me an authorized person, which to me meant I was sacrificial, it was fine, they could do without me. And how that got by our NEPA people, but even worse now, maybe, I mean NEPA has been so emasculated that they don't even have to have public input. For example, back when that big, big four inch five inch EIS statement came out, they were going to use medium to large size rockets, that's what they were preparing, planning to launch and they had a certain failure rate and everything which was apparently acceptable to most people. 

But now since they received so much controversy, they decided to go with smaller rockets, which have a 10 times greater failure rate. Well, would you rather have more small ones or one big one, I guess that's what it amounts to. But now the bad thing is they do not have to have any public input on that change. Because of something the President's political administration put in NEPA, just just emasculated NEPA, which is the Environmental Protection Act. So we're really, we meaning the US public, really in a bad situation here. And not being political I can't suggest a way out except for people to get involved and learn about what's going on. And, of course, there's a good website, “No Rockets Over Wilderness' ' which I will explain all the details of, and it just seems preposterous, and yet it's real. It's like reading something in science fiction. Especially to me because I’m right directly in the line of fire, or under the line of fire. But also, one more little tidbit is that less than eight miles to the south of where we're launching these rockets, and you can in other words, you can stand on the shore and see where they're going to launch some look down and see big buildings and that's where we store nuclear warheads. So there's just not a lot that adds up for me. I'm a kind of common sense type of person and have trouble when things are so illogical. Just really, really don't know how to even think about it. But the answer is for people to get involved. I mean, I've been screaming so long that I'm stale. You know, they don't want to hear, they just look at me and go, “Oh, no, here she comes again.” So you really need fresh people, new people out the drums.

Ayana Young  Absolutely, I, I'm all for that. And yeah the NEPA process being gutted is, part of me wants to say it’s shocking, but it’s not with how this country is governed and it’s something that we all really need to be concerned about, and need to look into. Because it’s taking away our voice when it comes to managing our land. And you, it’s a huge deal. For those of us, honestly, for everybody but especially for those of us who love the land and don't want to see more disruption and resource extraction and poisoning and stealing of the last bits of fresh water for more extraction, for what you know for 99 cent store crap? Like for what are we doing this for? It's insane, just thinking that the chain of what all of this resource extraction and all of this development leads to it just leads to more crap that we throw away in landfills halfway around the world. It's not for anything valuable. And, and so yeah it’s just killing the Earth to create trash.

Carol Ruckdeschel Yeah, but, you know, the root of it all, the elephant in the room that no one will speak of, is why? And it's because we can, because we have artificial fertilizers, because we can feed more and more and more, and sustainability is not in many of our vocabularies any longer. Its growth growth growth. And that's not sustainable and we just can't keep doing it. We can’t, we’re like rats in a cage-

Ayana Young  It’s an addiction.

Carol Ruckdeschel it's been done, it's been tested, and you just can only put so many rats in a cage and the planet is a cage.

Ayana Young  Well, I think there's an addiction to growth and consumption and yeah, breaking that addiction and realizing that this addiction is creating spiritual bankruptcy in us. And this is really a question about a spiritual reckoning of coming back home to ourselves and to this Earth and yeah, but anyways I could go down this existential rabbit hole for hours, but I do want to get back to Spaceport Camden, and it seems like supporters of Spaceport Camden argue that the project would bring in hundreds of high-paying aerospace jobs to rural Georgia, which is somewhat of a fallacy seeing as other projects have been unable to procure these results...but regardless this highlights the intricacies and increasing threat rural wilderness faces as the capitalist economy continues to decline; so I’d just like to explore this topic with you a bit further in terms of what bolstering rural economies means for wilderness preservation and how you’d define true natural resources? 

Carol Ruckdeschel It’s very true that the mainland opposite Cumberland is fairly undeveloped. The place opposite the south end is becoming more and more developed, getting houses in other words, the view from the island looking toward the mainland used to be just natural and it's no longer that if you see houses. Well Camden County, and most Georgia counties put very little value on any nature features, they just don’t see the value. Why do people want to come to Camden County? Right now it’s because it’s not so highly developed. And yet, it’s only natural, according to our culture today, the people that work there in the Chamber of Commerce and all that, they want more and more and more development for more and more and more people, but they’re missing a big part of it. They don’t realize why people come to Cumberland even, I mean they keep wanting to raise the limit of people that can come to the island, the park and that’ll ruin everything. 

We don’t need this kind of development. I mean not only is it a threat to the nuclear resources, but to the island and the whole area. We just have to get a better appreciation for undeveloped land, and maybe that’s what you mean by wilderness. Of course, it’s not wilderness over there, there used to be big signs along the place where they're going to develop the Spaceport, saying “danger unexploded ordnance.” Well whoa what does that mean? Well, the big chemical companies, like Dow, it’s a hazmat site over there! And yet that’s where we are going to put this, and no proposal to ever clean it up that I’ve ever heard of.  

So what does that mean for the waterways? And there are just so many questions that are unanswered and it’s just, in this big push to bring money into Camden County which may or may not happen if everything went right, and so far everything has gone wrong and me, taxpayers are paying the bills. What, 7 or 8 million they’ve already spent trying to do this and nothing’s been done!

Ayana Young  In 2018 the Federal Aviation Administration received over 15,000 public comments opposing the project, yet the FAA decided to move forward with the project without any additional opportunity for public comment. I understand that the FAA will issue its final decision for the launch site in March of 2021, just a few months away. For listeners who recognize the incredible importance of this decision, what can they do? Without a public comment period, what can be done?

Carol Ruckdeschel Well, they can go to that site I told you about “No Rockets Over Wilderness” that website, and there’s a place to easily send letters and things like that and become familiar with what’s going on. That's about the best thing. I mean, until they come out with an EIA, even then that doesn’t mean anything because there’s no public comment, unless there is something that can be done between now and then, who knows? I don’t know. I’m not that political to know whether anything could be done or not. Write to our senators, write to Georgia, Georgia the state supports it of course, but enough letters could change people's opinion.

Ayana Young  Well, Carol, I hope this conversation has reminded our listeners that there are folks whose homes are entire ecosystems, and the launching of rockets across the island of Cumberland is no different than if someone were to launch rockets within one’s bedroom...As we come to a close, I’d like to ask you about what you’ve witnessed and the trends you’ve noticed because you’ve committed yourself to one small bioregion since the 70s? What do you wish others would take stalk of? Or just, any reflections you wish to close on...

Carol Ruckdeschel Yeah, I've thought a lot about it, because I've fought for what I thought was right in protecting the island for so long. And I don't feel like I made much progress. And I asked myself, why is that, and partially, I think it's because of a shifting baseline. And by that, I mean, one, one group of public officials, the Park Service, are running Cumberland, now, another group before them, and so on back, but every time one new group comes in, they take stock of things, and that's their baseline. So over time, that facilitates ecological degradation, because you're always starting from a lesser point, a lesser point, a lesser point. I mean, at one time, there were X number of cars, now there are X number of cars at one time, there were no bicycles. Now, there's bicycles everywhere, and so on, and the people just accept the new people coming in, because that's the way it is. So that's a big danger. 

And what that means is that the public has always gotta keep tabs on what's going on and don't consider what they see as locked in stone, they can change it, if they will write letters. Mostly, if you have a good time, and you leave, you don't think about whether you know anything. But if you have a bad bad time, you'll write a letter. Well, it's also good to say, wow, I walked all the way north and to Cumberland and I didn't see a vehicle, thank you park service, something like that, a positive, to try to reinforce it, because they don't hear the positive side of things. I mean, they have done a lot of good things. Right now, there's still a lot of bad things lined up to be done, such as fire management, and feral animals, but they've done a lot of good things, they did round up the cattle that were on the island. But again, it's the public that is going to have to keep tabs on whatever agency it is. Because just by nature, the government agencies do not like wilderness, and that's Fish and Wildlife, that's Forest Service, BLM and National Park Service. So the public is really got to hold them responsible. Without that, without that, I mean, all the groups can do a lot, but they don't, they're nothing like the public. If there's a public outcry, which makes what you're doing so important, I think.

Ayana Young  Thank you. Yeah, well, this has been a really just, yeah, I'm just thinking so much about this place. And it's been so wonderful to spend this time with you and put myself across the country and into a whole other ecosystem and land that is in need of care. Like all of the places that so many of us who are listening love and to be allies with one another as we fight for these places feels important. So Carol, thank you so much for this time that we've spent together. And I will be keeping up and keeping tabs on what's happening at Cumberland.

Carol Ruckdeschel Thank you, I and I really appreciate it. I think you're doing a wonderful thing.

Francesca Glaspell  Thank you for listening to another episode of For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Eliza Edens, Kesia Nagata, Lauren Alegre, and I Goodfriend. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Melanie Younger.